At the sight of my name, a strand of razor wire seemed to thrum in my gut, and

I reflexively looked down and immediately snapped my gaze back up, brutally aware I had no gut. "What's happening to me?"

"I think you already know, Mr. Charlie."

"Who are you?" I was frightened by this being's manipulation of me. "I am Sitor Ananta."

I stared hard at the creature, noted its fully human form, its five-fingered hands. "You're not like the others."

"The others are the reason I am here," Sitor Ananta said. "But first tell me what you think you know."

I intended to remain defiantly silent and stare down my tormentor, but Sitor Ananta touched the stylus to the moonpiece, and I spoke: "I am dead. But before I died I had arranged for my head to be cryonically stored upon my death. Now I believe I have been revived-by my future-by you."

"Yes. What you surmise is true, Mr. Charlie."

Shock occulted my vigor. I dizzied, felt my heart would simply burst-but I had no heart! Sitor Ananta used the stylus, and my horror dimmed to astonishment. "Why am I here? What are you going to do with me?"

"I merely wish to question you. About the others. I prefer your cooperation. The information I seek can be gleaned directly from your brain, but that process

is ternbly laborious and very expensive. You can, if you want to, simply tell me what I need to know and spare me all that."

A hellswirl of panic seized me as I understood: In this new time, I was but an object, a thing, three pounds of electrified glutinous tissue teased with electrodes.

The stylus moved once more, and I calmed down. The chamber filled with light, or seemed to. All that remained of my terror was a taste of loneliness. "Where am I?"

A thug's smile creased Sitor Ananta's young face. "Your life is measured on a calendar made of dust, Mr. Charlie, yet you want to know everything-as if anything matters for you anymore. Have you seen yourself-what you look like now? Have you seen your final face?"